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Hey there, time traveller!This article was published 16/6/2013 (1271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Transit drivers impatient

The introduction of bus rapid transit last year was supposed to help us transit riders miss all the heavy after-work traffic. While it has successfully achieved this goal, one major problem remains.

Many of the drivers fail to wait even 20 seconds when they intersect with a connecting bus. Countless times my entire bus schedule has been thrown off because a rapid-transit driver has not bothered to wait a few seconds to see if someone from a connecting bus needs to catch his or her bus.

Would it really throw their whole schedule that much out of whack if they waited just a few extra seconds?

At this time of year, it's not so bad, but I suffered through it on a few different occasions last winter, and it was simply brutal.

Perhaps if transit bus drivers knew that without us passengers, they would be out of a job they would take the time to stop and wait.

RICHARD COURCHENE

Winnipeg

Too busy to squeal

Re: Get paid for squealing on parking scofflaws (June 13). Please, give me a break. Do you really think anyone will take the time to do this?

Most people walking downtown are in a rush to get somewhere; they are not to be concerned about who's parking where.

Are Winnipeg city employees and their unions OK with me doing this work? Do I claim this income on my taxes or am I employed by the city?

How do I know that my pictures are resulting in a conviction or not? If someone having a bad day catches me taking a picture of their car and lays some parking-lot rage on me, am I covered under workers' compensation?

If I get paid, do I have to share the profits with the car owner for using a picture of their vehicle without their consent for financial gain?

There is no end to the legal questions on this one.

DARREN J. MOORE

Saskatoon

Defining 'modest'

I find it interesting that Steve Rauh (Letters, June 13) considers a 14.3 per cent increase in the PST to be "modest."

I am hoping that the government will give me a "modest" increase in my salary to help pay for the increase. It would also be interesting to know what he considers a large increase.

JIM ROBERTS

Winnipeg

Violence against unborn

In your June 8 story Memories, tributes for Morgentaler, I note the quote: "It was a very violent time. There were threats."

But the times were not as threatening or as violent as they were for the countless unborn babies put to death in a most horrific manner.

ELIZABETH PLACE

Winnipeg

Looking beyond the PMO

In his June 8 letter, Identifying with angry MP, Barry Craig writes that he identifies with Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber at having to put up with the arrogance of PMO staffers in the Trudeau era who offered him help in handling media inquiries.

The straw that broke the camel's back for Rathgeber was not the PMO. It was the decision of several of his caucus colleagues -- Conservative MPs -- who voted to change his bill, which required the disclosure of public salaries in government and Crown corporations.

Granted, Rathgeber suggested this was done at the behest of the prime minister so he wouldn't have to reveal how much he pays people in his office. Otherwise, Craig's anecdote is comparing apples to oranges.

DOUGALD LAMONT

Winnipeg

Promoting artistic legacy

Re: Graffiti is not an improvement on Mother Nature's works (June 12). In my opinion, it would promote the artistic legacy of the promulgators of graffiti if these same indiscriminate contaminators of private and public property could somehow be persuaded to create admirable artistic works of wonder and beauty (like the timber wolf mural adorning a highrise building in Thompson, for example) and thereby to figure prominently in the public eye again -- but now as benefactors, by properly edifying, encouraging and enhancing us all.

MICHAEL MOSKAL

Winnipeg

More on men and beasts

Re: Animal violence linked (Letters, June 13). Liz Craik speaks truly about the link between human cruelty to animals, and human cruelty to fellow humans. But we must always be careful not to surrender our God-given hegemony over the natural world, a hegemony we need in order to further the progress of mastering truthful principle in order to increase our power to survive in a hostile universe.

All this civilization, with its teeming billions and storehouse of discoveries, could be flattened in a generation or less by disease, famine and warfare, should the premise of animal rights -- that they are "equal" to us -- be sufficiently digested, like a stealthily administered poison.

Animal welfare flows from human largesse, from an understanding that it is good for humanity to nurture the childlike appreciation for beauty in, and sentiment of love towards, that which, as the Catholic Church puts it, "glorifies God."

GREGORY UNGER

Dugald

No rational human being wants to see cruelty toward animals go unpunished. But in this era of so much human suffering, I believe that Debbie Wall (Reasons for caring, Letters, June 11) has it backwards.

Instead of "the struggle for animal rights is not some sort of a slippery slope, but an uphill battle," it should be that the struggle for human rights is not some sort of a slippery slope but an uphill battle.

This is the more important issue and the one that the author of June 6 article, I believe, was trying to get across.

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